Bubblegum Chronicles
by Ravenhull
Summary: After the events of the OVA series, the Knight Sabers continue on their adventures. (These stories were written by me back in 1997, and only recently have I found an archive with them after thinking they were long lost. Presented as is, with only minor edits for format done. Was meant to be part of a longer series, but...)
1. Part 1: Stalkers

Welcome to the Bubblegum Chronicles. This is my first attempt to satisfy the fans of the Knight Sabers and I hope you like it. This is set one year after Crash and uses Crash, Crisis, The AD Police Files, and Adam Warren's Bubblegum Crisis: Grand Mal Comic from Dark Horse. Please drop a note or two to let me know if I have pulled this off. (And of course, all flames will be cheerfully ignored.) ============================================================

THE BUBBLEGUM CHRONICLES

Part One: Stalkers

By Donovan Alexander Willett

Chapter One

"Just what in the hell is going on here?"

Priss pushed her way through the crowd of onlookers and AD Police members to get to the scene. Tonight had been one of her biggest concerts yet, and she was not happy to hear that a boomer had been found torn apart right outside the auditorium.

Leon looked up from the notepad he was writing in and gave a tight smile. "Take over here, Daley." he said flipping his partner the notepad.

"Oh, I see." Daley said with a light smirk.

"The chief did say that we need to work on our public relations, did he not." Leon quickly guided the fuming Priss to a quiet corner. "Looks like your partners did fine out here."

Priss looked over at the debris littering the alley. It looked like two boomers had been shredded, but it was hard to be sure a third was not mixed in. She shook her head and looked back up at Leon. "That's part of the problem." she said quietly. "I was on-stage, Sylia is coming home from Kyoto, and the others were in the front row the whole show. The first we heard of it was when I went backstage."

"That is odd. We got here only to pick up the pieces. Besides, one looks like Linna's ribbon razors had gotten hold of it. The arms are cut clean off."

The both stood for a few moments looking over at where officers were now loading the pieces into a van for transport to headquarters."

"Leon!" a female voice called from across the scene.

Leon looked up and waved over a small woman in AD Police uniform. "I see you've been dragged out here too. If we're not careful, the chief will be here soon."

"At least you and Daley get to alternate the small calls, I'm going to get dragged out to every call we investigate." the woman said with a grim smile. "Anybody hurt?"

"Only two boomers." Leon replied, the he remembered who he had been talking to. "Oh, I'm sorry. Priss Asagiri, meet Lieutenant Iris Cara, the head of our new investigative division."

"Leaving you and Daley for taking down active boomers."

"Yep, we get the easy part. Iris, like I was saying to Priss here, we have no idea who might of taken down these two. We thought maybe the Knight Sabers, but no one saw them here."

Priss looked on as the two officers began conferring between themselves. She was a bit puzzled though, to her knowledge, Leon was the only officer who knew the identities of the Knight Sabers. Oh, Daley probably could guess if he wanted to, but no other member of the AD Police had been brought into their confidence. But here was Lieutenant Cara talking about AD Police investigations right in front of a civilian without hesitating, a major breach of normal protocol. She continued to think on this as she scanned the crowd. Then she saw him.

Tall, medium build, short black hair, mustache and beard. She had seen him out of the corner of her eyes for the past few weeks. He was not always there, but every few days she would see him at a restaurant or streetlight. She was not sure why he was there, but she felt that she was not going to like it.

" If you've got a stalker, why not call the police on him like you did with the last one?" Nene said looking up from the display of brassieres. The Silky Doll was relatively empty today and Sylia decided to hold their impromptu meeting right on the sales floor by the registers.

"He's not like the last time. He does not call, he does not approach, he just seems to watch."

"But that's the most dangerous kind!" Nene replied.

Sylia looked back to her friends. "I think he's been in here."

Priss turned to her. "When?"

"At least three times this month a man matching your description has been in here with a young lady. They look around for about half an hour and buy a few minor items. I don't think they were truly together though, he seemed to be simply with her."

Linna had been looking out the window at the front of the store, but she turned back. "I think our problem is getting a little worse. Look out front."

Priss and the others covertly looked out the window. Across from the Silky Doll, a cafe had set up sidewalk tables. Sitting at one of the tables was him, reading a paper and drinking a cup of coffee.

"That's him all right." Priss confirmed.

"I've seen him at the fitness club picking up one of my students. Think she might be your female customer Sylia?" Linna asked.

"Could be. Linna, you and Priss go back and get the backup suits. I want you to follow him when he leaves."

"Gotcha." they replied and edged toward the back of the store.

"Quit staring, Nene."

Nene looked back with a slight blush. "He is kind of cute."

"Control your hormones." Sylia said chuckling, "I want you to look at the surveillance tapes tonight while I scan the store. I want to know if he did anything in here."

"Want me to scan the networks for him? We could use pictures from the tapes for reference."

"Good idea, Nene, and while..." Sylia looked out the window with a worried look. The man was folding up the paper and putting money on the table. He was looking straight at the front door of the store where a man and two women were walking in. "Looks like he's moving."

Sylia reached for the telephone to call back to Priss and Linna when a scream cut across the store. No mater how many times she had seen it before, watching what had been perfectly normal people rip apart to reveal boomer cores still disturbed her.

They were covert combat models she saw, 55C or D models, meant to move into a city and take it by surprise. She had dealt with the prototypes way back when they had first started, but they were becoming common now.

The three of them opened fire on the store, hitting a poor woman looking at slips. Sylia dropped down behind the counter as Nene vaulted it to join her. "Priss, Linna, get in here!" she called into a small radio she carried with her.

She looked over the counter just in time to see one turn its cannon toward her, but before it could fire something struck its arm away. The fact that the man they had been observing was able to hit a boomer that hard indicated that there was more than met the eye. One grabbed him and threw him across the sales floor. He struck the wall with some force, and was pinned against it as the last boomer opened up with a machine gun on him. No man could survive that, but he got up with only bloody whelps indicating where he had been hit. With a determined look, he flexed his arms and black blades snapped forward from the back of his wrists like two swords lain across the back of his hands. Then he sprung forward and struck at the boomer.

It was then that the storefront windows crashed as Priss and Linna joined the fight. Priss brought up her arm and fired the rail guns there at one of the boomers, knocking it back, while Linna sprung forward to go hand to hand with another. The boomer that had been male turned and brought the large barreled cannon he packed when the mystery man shoved a blade through the back of the boomer's chest and he took its head off with two chops from the other blade.

The one Priss shot turned on him and extended a blade of its own, bringing it down on him. He brought his arms up to block, but screamed as the blade was only deflected. He brought his arms down and Sylia could see blood on his hands. The boomer did not have a chance to take advantage of this for another salvo from Priss blew out the back of his head.

She looked around to Linna to see that she had defeated her boomer. Both Knight Sabers were looking now at the last occupant of the store. He was holding is left hand, but looked at the two armored women. "Sorry ladies, but I've got to run." he said and sprinted out the store.

"Priss, follow him!" Sylia yelled and Priss quickly followed.

Priss was mad, someone had sent those boomers to the store deliberately, which probably meant that someone knew that at least Sylia was a Knight Saber. She looked as the odd boomer, there was no other explanation for him, jumped on a bike which started even before he got there. She jumped on her own bike, which she had ridden to the store, and took off after him.

He weaved like a madman through the streets of Mega-Tokyo and onto the highway, and it took all of Priss' skills to slowly close the gap between them. As she pulled along side, she could see that the last two fingers on his left hand were gone along with a portion of the hand itself.

He looked over at her and smiled. "Sorry Priss." he yelled at her as his had snapped out and grabbed something below her thigh. Instantly the bike cut off and she was forced to coast to the side as the road as he took off down the highway. She looked on with a dull feeling of rage as he disappeared into traffic then looked at her bike. It was simple for her to snap back on the quick-connect connection to fix her bike.

She was a little scared now. At a hundred twenty kilometers per hour, in traffic, and with a bad hand, he had been able to disable her bike instantly.

"Well girls, anything you wish to tell me that doesn't go on the file?" Leon was tired. He was up all night with the last with the last incident and here was again with another boomer incident.

Sylia looked up from the counter she was leaning on. "Not much, we saw the other guy just before they attacked and I wanted the others to follow him."

"So that's why they got in here so quick. You act like you've seen this guy before today."

"He's been hanging around us for a few weeks in the background. Give us a chance to take care of him ourselves."

"If you say so." Leon replied as he turned around and leaned back against the counter himself. He looked up in time to see Lt. Cara coming in the door. It was with some satisfaction that he noted that she looked as tired as he was. "Looks like we have two fatalities this time." he said as she approached. "One customer and an employee."

Sylia winced at that. Tara had been a good worker and she hated the idea that her nighttime activities had caused the girl's death.

Iris took a slow look around the store. It would take a lot of money to repair the damage she mentally noted. At last her eyes fell on Nene sitting on a bench against the wall. "When I said we should go to a few clubs tonight, I didn't know you were looking for something sexy to wear." she needled her lightly. "Were you planning to leave me behind to go with some young stud?"

Nene blushed, then felt a mild panic about how to explain her presence here. "I like to look around and fantasize about what would look good on me." she fumbled out after a second.

"Well, you picked the wrong time this time." Iris turned to Sylia. "We can have an incident report for your insurers shortly Miss Stingray. Do you have any idea why the boomers decided to trash a lingerie shop?"

"No. I guess they were in random violence mode. You're people need to do something about this."

Leon heard the mild barb in Sylia's voice. "Ah, were are doing everything legally possible at this time Miss Stingray."

"He knew just where to grab." Priss said. "It's as if he knew all about the motoroids."

The Sabers were gathered around a table in Sylia's little base of operations. After four hours since the attack, they had no real answers.

"Our mystery boomer knew what they were." Sylia said after a moment. "He was up and moving before they even opened the door."

"You think he might be working against his creators?" Linna asked.

"I don't know." Priss replied, "After Sylvie and Anri, I see it is possible, but this one is obviously a combat model."

"I don't think he is a boomer." Nene interjected. They all turned to face her, and then they saw the plastic bag Nene had just laid on the table.

"Those are his fingers, aren't they." Sylia said picking them up. "I wondered why Leon or Cara did not recover them."

"I pocketed them as the smoke cleared. Since, I've done a little analysis." She looked down to a small terminal on the table. "The fingers are biologically human. Tissues are normal except that a net encases the muscles and a fine mesh is just under the skin. The bones are made of a high strength ceramic interlaced with existing bone. The blood is normal type B-positive with some unknown chemicals added." She looked up at her friends. "It looks more like he was a boomeroid using some new implant technology."

"A Genom renegade?" Priss thought aloud, "Like that one that tried to trash AD Police headquarters."

Nene shrugged, "I don't know. I ran the fingerprints through the police files, but came up clean. So I started a wide base search."

"You got something too." said a new voice. Mackie walked into the room carrying a sheaf of papers. "This started printing out when you girls came in here." He shuffled through the papers. "The fingerprints matched a guy blown up about five years ago. One Marcus Bryant, a journalist who had been writing scathing articles about Genom's boomer polices. Several of his articles are here. His car was blown up and they found an arm and a leg which were matched to him. He was presumed dead then."

Mackie tossed the papers onto the table and a picture slid into view. Priss picked it up. "This is him all right. Add a beard to the face and you have him exactly."

Linna looked over Priss' shoulder. "Yeah, he hasn't changed much in the last five years."

"People don't change much over such a short time." Sylia said, "But I want an all out effort to find this Marcus Bryant. I want to know who he is and what he knows."

Chapter Two

"Of all the gall."

That was all Sylia could say as she reviewed the surveillance tapes. As any store would have, the Silky Doll had cameras watching for shoplifters. One was located behind a mirrored wall at the back of the store. She rewound the tape to be sure of what she saw. Sure enough, the man identified as Marcus Bryant walked up to the mirror and began combing his hair. The camera was about chest level to him, so it surprised her to see him drop his face down to about the level of the camera. All of that could be thought as a coincidence until he started to make faces at the camera. Sylia had checked that camera out herself when it was installed. There should have been no way he would know it was there. Otherwise, his behavior in the store was normal. He seemed to be browsing, but he paid just as much attention to the other customers as he did the merchandise.

His companion seemed to mirror his behavior. An attractive black haired woman, she would browse, try on a few items, but also watched the customers. It was times like this that Sylia wished that propriety had not prevented the monitoring of the dressing room to see if she did anything unusual in there.

"Linna, what did it look like he was doing out there before the attack?" she asked.

Linna sat back for a moment thinking back two days. "I don't know really. Just sitting there drinking his coffee and looking around."

"Almost like what he's doing here." Sylia said tapping the monitor. "Has she ever said anything to you?"

Linna looked at the woman in the monitor. "Not really. Rei just comes in and exercises. But thinking on it, she had never missed a session and seemed to be in better shape than anyone else there."

"Has she come since?"

"No, she should have been there yesterday. Maybe they felt that she would be recognized for her association with him. But that's assuming they know I am a Knight Saber."

"They knew that Priss was." Sylia shut down the monitor and leaned back in her chair. After a moment, she tossed a photo over to Linna. "Nene got one hit on her broad based scan. It was a little fluff piece in a minor paper a few weeks ago. In it was a picture of people lined up for Priss to sign their discs. He was standing in the background in the classical-rock section."

Linna looked at the photo for a moment. Priss was in the foreground signing covers with a crowd of fans surrounding her. He was only a few meters away looking at another album. Then she sat up. "Sylia, can you enlarge that disc he's holding."

"Sure, why?"

"He may have bought it. The stores keep a record of their customers and what they buy. It helps them plan mailings. We have a date for this photo, and if he bought that one we may have a name, or at least an alias, for him."

Sylia sat up. "Good idea, let's get right on it."

"Hey little girl." A slurred voice said behind Nene's ear. "Come along with me little darling and I will lick and stick you so good you would never want to leave."

Nene turned four shades of red and tossed her half finished vodka and orange juice over her shoulder, much to the amusement of Iris.

"Maybe you should take him up on it, he sounds talented. Oh my, I didn't know such shades of red existed." Iris said trying to keep a straight face. "But seriously my dear, why don't you have a young man at your arm."

Nene picked up her new drink and stared at it before answering. "I don't know really. I haven't found anyone I really like yet. So far, the only one I know that understands me is a guy I have trouble understanding."

Iris laughed to herself. "So is there any others that have caught your eye?"

"Well, there is one...but..."

"Priss, Linna, thanks for getting here this quick."

Priss looked around the briefing room. "Where's Nene?"

Linna answered this. "She and Lt. Cara went out bar hoping."

"We have enough right here and why risk raising Lt. Cara's suspicions about her." Sylia said. "We can always call her if we need her."

Sylia walked over to the table and hit a control on it. Up on the wall, a monitor screen lit up with pictures of their mystery man. "Linna's idea turned up a name, and when Nene added to her search pattern, this came up. He's going by the name William Tyler, a computer operator for Bright Star Hospital." She brought up a city map. "We have his address and a monitor drone on his apartment. Priss, when he leaves, I want you to follow him in full armor and monitor is movements. I want you, Linna, to go in his home with the stealth suit and scout it out. I will be down in the street with the surveillance van. Any questions."

"Do you want me to avoid contact at all costs?" Priss inquired.

Sylia thought for a moment. "No. If he marks you, have a few words with him. But be careful. We don't know his full capabilities."

Marcus stepped out of the bookstore after twenty minutes. Priss felt it was about now that Linna would be entering the apartment so she was a little worried that he was heading home. But instead he stowed his purchase in the saddlebags and leaned against the bike. Priss had been following him for a little over an hour now and was wanting to abandon the rooftop perch she now held.

After a minute or so, he rolled his head on is shoulders and began to walk toward an alley beside the store. Priss cursed to herself, for the store was across the street from her position. The street was quiet this early evening, so she risked a quick jump on her jets to get across the street. She ran to the side of the building to look down into the alley.

He wasn't there.

"Looking for me, young lady?"

Priss spun around. Standing there, leaning against an air conditioning unit where he could not be seen before, was Marcus.

Priss straightened up and looked at her quarry. "So, what should I call you, Marcus Bryant or William Tyler?"

"Bill Tyler came into existence four years ago and only exist to those I do not trust. Call me Marcus."

Priss strode across the roof and snatched the front of his shirt, shoving him up the wall. "You may say you trust me, but I don't trust you." she said. "I want to know how you knew those boomers were going to attack."

"While those models may look normal to the naked eye, their infrared signature is quite distinctive."

Priss was disgusted now. "So you are another one who sacrifices everything to be just like those boomers." She grabbed his left hand with her free hand and squeezed the last two fingers which she new had been cut off. "You got these welded on fast." But she was surprised to see him wince when she squeezed them.

"Those are quite real, I would have you know."

"OK, I'm in Sylia." came in over the radio in the van. Sylia sat in the non-descript van wearing her hardsuit sans helmet and fidgeting slightly as she monitored Linna's progress. Screens in front of her relayed the information collected from the black stealth suit's sensors.

"Understood. I'm getting good readings here."

The view over the screens panned the room. "Heavy reader." Linna commented. "Likes a wide variety of music too. Apparently he was listening to the disc he bought in the photo before he left. I'm not picking up anything major from sensors in here so I'm proceeding to the bedroom."

As Linna searched the hall, Sylia had time for her thoughts. She hated operating with two members of the team absent, but it could not be helped. Both Mackie and Nene had taken off already when the final information came through and she wanted to act on it immediately.

Thoughts of Mackie brought a small smile to her face. For a long time, she thought that he and Nene would be together, but it seemed that Mackie was a little afraid of the little red head. But who knows, she thought, Akiko was a bit of an exhibitionist and he was a voyeur, a perfect match some would say.

Linna's voice broke her thoughts. "I've found the bedroom. This is odd. He has a home gym in his bedroom, but the weights are all in the standard range. The set is heavily used though." The camera view shifted to the walls. "I think I have something here. A part of the wall reads different on IR." A hand pressed against the wall and a panel slid back revealing a storage compartment. "Got a small compartment here. Contains some sort of body armor, unaugmented, with helmet. There's also a backpack with a thrust unit. The arms have some sort of projectile or energy weapon included."

Sylia thought on that. Possibly a combat suit for when he knew there would be trouble ahead.

An alarm interrupted her thoughts. All of the team wore life signs monitors both in their armor or in their bras (except for Mackie, of course, who wore a special watch). If vital signs dropped from the norm, a signal was sent to her monitors. One was now showing massive injuries. She took a minute to determine location of the monitor and got ready to recall Linna. But before she could call her, Linna's audio receivers picked up a voice in the apartment.

"Miss Yamazaki, there is an emergency..."

Iris and Nene stood outside the club in the cool night air. "Would you look at that moon." Iris said looking to the sky.

Nene looked up. "It's sad that it is the only thing you can see up there. Sometimes I hate that the city lights drown out the stars." They stood quietly for a few moments. "Iris. When you first arrived at the office, Leon acted quite surprised. Do you two have some kind of history."

Iris looked closely at Nene. She did not realize how sober the girl was still. "About eight years ago, when I was a rookie in the Normal Police and Leon had just transferred to the AD Police, we had to work together on a case. I was still young and idealistic. I felt that the AD Police had no need to stick it's nose in anything outside clear cut boomer and terrorist activities."

Iris pulled Nene toward where she had parked her car next to Nene's scooter. "It was the Paradise Loop murders. Everybody figured it was some sort of rogue boomer. But I disagreed. I just knew that it was a human killer. the level of brutality was on an emotional level that no boomer could match. Turned out we were all right. She had been human but had seventy-two percent of her body replaced. The mental strain was hard on her, and when she found that her husband preferred Paradise Loop prostitutes to her artificial organs, she went mad."

Iris now leaned against her car. "I was having some problems with my right eye then. I had been hesitant to have it replaced, and Leon had seen me in the clinic and tried to talk me out of it. I had the procedure right after she was killed. I had a lot of excuses about wanting to be perfect, or getting rid of the pain. But the truth was that the new eye did not cry." She looked Nene in the eyes now. "After her death, I somehow felt that it was not right for me to cry over the death of someone who killed so many."

Suddenly she stood straight up. "But let's get off this gloom and doom. I know of a great Kareokee club near here."

Nene laughed. "OK, but I won't sing. The last time I sang, my friends nearly strangled me with the mike cord to shut me up."

They laughed and Nene walked over to her scooter.

Priss let go of the hand and saw red marks, even a drop of blood, on the fingers.

"I was tanked for eighteen hours after that fight and it took another day and a half to regrow those." he said flexing them. "But to reply to your statement, I am only seventeen percent artificial by body mass. Admittedly, a little over half my body has been regrown, but it's all genetically normal. In fact the only thing replaced is my eyes."

Priss shoved him a little further up the wall. "What were you doing at the store anyway? And how do you know so much about us?"

"One of our monitors in Genom managed to block an inquiry about the relationship between Dr. Stingray and a certain young lady. Further checks showed they were looking into all four of your records, so we began direct monitoring to watch for possible attacks. As for how we know who you are, one of our remote monitor drones got a shot of you during the 'vampire' incident. It only took a little work to notice who were your friends from there."

Being reminded of Sylvie's death did nothing to improve Priss' mood. "Who are you?" she hissed.

"I am Marcus Bryant, former reporter for the Tokyo Sun. Blown up April of '31 for criticizing Genom too much, I was pulled free by members of an organization that wishes to shatter that corporation."

Priss stood thinking what else to ask him and considering weather to throw him around some more for the hell of it when she noticed his eyes unfocused.

"What...get her to the center...pick me up with the copter." he said to nobody. With that he brought his legs up and kicked Priss away from him. Before Priss could recover, he ran toward the edge of the roof, but stopped short.

"Damn, this concerns you too. Priss, is your motoroid available?"

Priss was confused for a second and was not sure why she answered. "No, I was taking the rooftops and left it behind."

"You can ride with me then, come on."

"I'm not going anywhere with you!" she said as she ran back up to him.

"Damnit Priss, trust me, something has happened."

Priss grabbed him again and held him in the air, ready for another kick. But he didn't kick her. Instead the blade in his right arm shot out and he struck at the back of her armor. It instantly became dead weight on her. Blinded by the now inoperative visor, she could not fight him off as he threw her over his shoulder and leaped to the sidewalk. She quickly found herself astride a motorcycle which pulled away from the store.

After a few seconds, she managed to get her visor up to see where she was going. He was taking her at maximum speed when an air ambulance set down before them and he pulled on into it.

Getting off the bike, he turned and pulled off her helmet. "Get your armor off and stow it in that container. Only a few of us know your identity and we want to keep it that way."

Still astride the bike, Priss was confused. But before she could say anything, she saw the patient being transported. Surrounded by Medtechs, she could barely see the bloody face. But only a glimpse was needed.

"NENE!"

Chapter Three

"Where are we?"

Linna's question echoed the ones in Sylia's mind. A mere half hour ago, the life-signs monitor Nene wore had gone nuts. Then the mysterious invitation/demand that she and Linna enter this complex through a passage linking it to the Byrant apartment. In there they were told to strip out of their armor and into unmarked jumpsuits and were escorted into this room.

The room was large and centered around four large tanks full of a pale blue liquid. Technicians swarmed around one, preparing it for something. Sylia snagged one as he walked by. "Excuse me, what going on here?" she asked.

The technician looked at her for a second, his eyes going to the badge that had been attached to the front of the jumpsuit. "One of the people we have been monitoring has just been badly hurt. We don't want to risk losing him to the normal medical community so we're bringing him here." He then turned and walked over to take his place among the techs.

It was then that the doors to her left opened and four more techs rushed in guiding a gurney. Sylia tried to follow it but a restraining hand grabbed her arm. "Don't worry Miss Stingray, she's in damn good hands."

Sylia turned. Holding her arm was Marcus Bryant who was looking at the operating area. Beside him, Priss stood wearing a jumpsuit like hers, but was restrained by the firm of hand of Lt. Cara on her shoulder. She looked back and saw that the techs had by now cut most of Nene's clothes off and they lifted her nearly nude body into the tank. As her face went under, she struggled, even unconscious, to reach air. Sylia once again tried to go forward but her arm was held firm. "The fluid is special, breathable. It's not pleasant at first, but it will help her heal."

After a second, he began guiding them toward another door. "Let's get out their way and go in here." He said. The door lead to another room with a large conference table and windows overlooking the tanks.

"Nene is in the best place available." Iris said. "She is out of reach of Genom and given time, the tank can completely heal all of her wounds."

The Knight Sabers stood at the window looking down on the people working on Nene. They could not see Nene herself through the crowd, but looked blankly as the now blue-tinged underwear were tossed to the floor after they cut them off her.

"Marcus," Iris said behind them, "I'm headed upstairs. Leon and Daley will probably be here soon and I want to keep them satisfied."

As she left, an older man entered the room. "Ah, I see you've gathered her friends. Ladies, please sit down. I am Doctor Bernard Harrison."

The three of them turned around and, after a moment, Linna and Sylia took the offered seats. Priss instead remained standing and leaned against the window so she could still see the tanks.

"Very well Miss Asagiri." he started. "I would like to welcome the three of you to the last remnants of BioStar Industries."

Sylia thought for a second. "BioStar, a cybernetics and medical research corporation who was bought out by Genom about seven years ago. To my knowledge, they shut down everything BioStar owned."

"We had some advanced warning and the head office released about five research units, including mine in Los Angeles. Genom managed to wipe out the other four, but we gathered the remnants together and set up here, in the shadow of Genom Tower Tokyo."

Priss looked at Dr. Harrison. "And just what do you think you can do here?"

Harrison looked over at her. "Our goal is the shattering of Genom."

"That could be counter-productive." Sylia said, "As bad as it is, Genom's destruction could have dangerous repercussions."

Dr. Harrison sat down at the end of the table. "Notice I said shatter, not destroy. I agree that most of our current society is directly subsidized by Genom." This brought forth a snort from Priss. Harrison gave her an annoyed look and continued. "Genom became dangerous when it began to be everything. For example, Genom Automotive is not dangerous by itself, but linked with Genom Oil, they begin a dangerous trend. Genom has managed to do that with our entire economy."

Harrison stood and walked over to the windows. "Genom seeks to destroy anything that rivals their superiority. BioStar was small compared to Genom, but the results of our programs threatened the near monopoly that Genom then held." He gestured to the tanks beyond the window. "We were then on the verge of this." he said gesturing toward the tanks. "We can cause a body to regrow lost limbs and organs. No cyber, no transplants." He walked back to the table. "Our probes into the Genom mainframe show that they have filed our work away and are letting the dust gather on it."

Marcus spoke up now. "It was to shatter Genom that BioStar recruited me and a few others. I was already in their debt for rescuing me and I was eager to fight back. We accepted the best augments that BioStar has and trained to fight back against Genom. It was then that we first witnessed four mysterious women in battlesuits fighting boomers and me and the rest of the Stalkers were put on the back burner."

Harrison looked at Marcus. "If you were caught, it could have destroyed us."

"We are doing no good in here."

Sylia could see that this argument has been a long standing one that would not end here. "Those were Stalkers who escorted Linna and myself here."

"Yes, Adrian and Rei. Hiroshi and Iris round us out."

Pain. Bright, searing pain was all she could remember. Pain in her face, her head, her arms, her whole body.

Nene opened her eyes to a blue world. It took her a second to realize that she was submerged and she struggled against restraints to sit up.

"Relax Miss Romanova." a voice said in the fluid. She could make out the form of a man standing over the tank she was in. She tried to speak, but the fluid would not flow over her vocal cords fast enough to make a sound. Another form came into view, and it took a second for Nene to recognize Sylia who reached into the fluid to lay a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

The man spoke again. "While you can breathe it, you can not speak in the tank. On your right side is a six button keypad like the ones you have worked with before. The screen on your right side will show your typing."

Nene reached down and felt the pad. It was like the one she had at work with buttons for each finger, the thumb, and palm. With a little effort she began to type.

[WHERE AM I SYLIA?]

Sylia adjusted a small headset mike and replied. "We're in a facility below Bright Star Hospital where our mysterious stranger works." She hesitated for a second. "Someone tried to kill you Nene. They put a bomb in your scooter."

Nene looked at her self in the tank. She could see red scars dotting her nude body. It was then that she noticed that a screen was blocking her view of her left arm. Nor, she realized now, could she feel it.

[WHAT'S WRONG WITH MY ARM SYLIA?]

"I'm sorry Nene, it was lost in the explosion."

Only the feel of Sylia's reassuring hand on her shoulder kept Nene from going into a full panic now.

The man spoke again. "We have four options Miss Romanova, the first two we consider unacceptable. The first is that we can seal the arm and leave you crippled like this. The second is that we can give you an artificial arm. I'm sure you can see that these are unacceptable."

Even though she could not feel the tears in the tank, Nene knew she was now crying.

"On the other hand, we can regrow your arm in this tank. Your arm will be totally natural. The only problem it that while we can regrow the tissues in a few days, the bones require three weeks or they will be too brittle. On the other hand, we can lace your skeletal system with a ceramic compound making the bones near unbreakable. We have given Miss Stingray a full briefing on the procedure and she has no objections, but the final decision is yours of course. If you accept, we can have you out of the tank in three days."

Nene looked at her right hand, then at the screen at her left shoulder. She just laid there looking at both for a while.

[GIVE ME SOME TIME TO THINK ON IT.]

Sylia broke the connection. "That was Mackie. They'll be letting Nene out of the tank tomorrow morning."

Priss sat back in her chair. "I'll bet he was disappointed to learn they had put clothes on our little girl before he got there."

Ignoring that, Sylia sat down and looked over the data they had collected over the last two days. "So far, everything that BioStar has told us has been confirmed. A small group within Genom has discovered our identities, and the only thing saving us is that they apparently want to serve us to Quincy on a silver platter rather than send the data to Genom Tower. For the next few days, we are going to watch their home base and find the right time to strike them down. Any comments?"

Priss leaned forward. "Yeah, I still don't trust BioStar. As far as we can tell, they might have been the ones who tried to kill Nene."

Linna now spoke up. "Of course if we take that line of thought further, Marcus himself might have been a victim of BioStar. But as far as we can tell, they have been straight with us."

Priss was not satisfied. "Look how they have been pressuring Nene to be made artificial like them."

"They have done nothing since the bone-lacing, and they have offered no other procedures." Sylia replied to that.

Nene stood looking at herself in the full-legnth mirror. All the scars were gone and only the cast-like unit encasing her left arm attested to the wounds she had suffered. After a few minutes she pulled on the one-piece jumpsuit they had given her and walked out the room.

As far as she could tell, she had nearly full access to the place with only a few parts denied her. She now spent her free time exploring where she was allowed and trying to learn about where she wasn't.

It was on these explorations that she found the gym. It was empty save for one man. In the center of the room Marcus Bryant was going through the slow motions of Tai Chi. Clad in only a pair of shorts and a fine gleam of sweat, Nene found that he was as attractive she had imagined.

Ending a motion, he opened his eyes and saw her there. "Miss Romanova."

"Nene, please."

"Nene then, have they scheduled exercise for you already? The Tai Chi is excellent for your arm."

"No, I was just wandering the building. Why do you exercise when you have those improved muscles?"

He thought on that for a second and smiled. "My muscle net only augments my base strength, I can improve my full abilities." He had by now walked over to her and was examining a panel on her 'cast.' "This says you are ready to have it removed for brief periods of exercise and such. A little work like Tai Chi could help you learn to use the new arm faster."

They walked over to a basin at the side of the room and he opened the cast. Her arm was still a little pink, and the nails were still too short, but it was almost healed now. But she found she could not move it smoothly.

"It takes a few days for the arm to learn to listen to the brain. When I first came out of the tank after they found me, I could not even walk. Rei worked with me and taught me the Tai Chi which sped my recovery. Come over her and I can teach you the basic moves."

They moved to the center of the room and he began leading her through the motions. Nene could feel his body pressed against her back and she began to relish the experience. She noticed that his hands guiding the motions were lingering along her arms more than was necessary as if he did not with to break contact.

Suddenly he stepped back from her. "Sorry Nene." he said hurriedly. "I just remembered I have an appointment to get to."

The door to the gym opened and he seemed relieved to see someone else. "Rei can teach you far better than me. Iris, can you help Miss Romanova with her arm unit." he said then almost ran to the showers.

Iris Cara looked over at his retreating form with a look of mild puzzlement. "Come over here Nene." she said waving Nene back to the basin.

Iris had been avoiding her, and Nene was a bit irked at her. "So, was it your assignment to become my friend, just like it was his to follow Priss around."

Iris seemed to wince at that. "No, I was not assigned to follow you." she said snapping back on the cast. She reached over and attached a small hose to a port on the unit and Nene could feel new fluid filling it. "I was only told to watch out for you at work. I do consider you a friend."

"How long have you been spying on the police?"

Iris removed the hose and finally looked Nene in the eyes. "I am not spying on the police. I was recruited by BioStar three years ago to help slip needed information into police and AD Police investigations which they were not able to find on their own. My transfer to the AD Police had nothing to do with my status here, and it came as a surprise to all of us."

"And I'm supposed to believe that."

Iris's face turned dark. "You can believe anything you wish to." she said and she turned away.

Marcus stood drying himself off and looking in the mirror. He had felt her press against him and he was enjoying it. "Damnit." he said to himself. "She is just locking onto someone who helped her. If I act on that, it could be a disaster."

After a minute he got dressed and walked back out into the gym. Nene was gone, but Iris stood pounding on a punching bag. He could tell by the way the bag moved that she had her triple strength nets augmenting the blows. He mentally activated his superior muscle nets and grabbed her arms to help stop her from hurting herself. Holding her fists, he looked at her face which was now lined with tears.

"There it is."

Only a week since the explosion that nearly killed Nene, the Knight Sabers stood ready to strike back at their attackers. The research facility was small, and was not even mentioned on most Genom assets records.

Sylia frowned in he suit. They needed Nene's sensors but could not wait another week for her to be ready so she had modified her own suit with a sensor suite approaching Nene's. While she could understand the readings perfectly well, she did not have Nene's experience in interpreting them on the fly.

"OK, looks like four standard security boomers on the roof. We can take them and get down the staircase with no problem." Sylia said and she walked over to her waiting motoroid. With her flight units removed to make room for the sensors, she needed the motoroid for flight.

"Knight Sabers, Sanjo!"

The boomers barely had time to react as three were hit nearly simultaneously by a blast from each Knight Saber. The forth began to move when it was hit by all three. Smashing down the doors to the main staircase, Linna lead the way into the building. Just as the blueprints had said, the staircase had a wide open well in the center and they dropped the six floors down to the second basement where the research unit was based. At the bottom of the stairwell, they abandoned the motoroids and moved through the doors leaving the exit to be guarded by the now autonomous units.

Smashing into the room, Sylia could see that all four members of the research team were there. They now had a terrified look on their which Sylia knew would be in her nightmares for weeks to come, but she fired anyway. If they lived, it would not be long before the Knight Sabers would be utterly destroyed.

"Linna, watch our backs. Priss, plant the explosives while I do a system dump from the mainframe."

Each Knight Saber took her position and began their tasks. Once the system dump began, Sylia looked again at the four bodies laying on the floor. With Brian J. Mason, it was simple. He was trying to kill her right there and then. With these four, the threat was less obvious and the thoughts of what they could do to her did not reduce the guilt she felt.

Two boomers smashed through the doors of the facility and assailed Linna. Priss looked back for a second, but continued her job trusting Linna to eliminate the attackers. With practiced ease, Linna cocked back with her arm and readied the knuckle bombs on her fist. Striking one on the chest, she disabled the first attacking boomer but was struck away by the second.

The boomer looked around and saw that the greatest threat was the data that Sylia was down-loading. It moved toward her, not using its ranged attacks to avoid damage to the mainframe but was stopped when Linna's ribbon razors sheared off its arms. It turned opening its mouth to unleash the laser there when a second use of knuckle bombs shattered its head.

With the data dump complete, the Sabers headed back to the stairwell. There they found that the motoroids had dispatched two more boomers. Mounting up, they lifted up and out of the building and watched as it shook with the detonation of the bombs While the building still stood and the other workers inside were merely shaken up, no remains of the research unit would be left.

Flying back home, Sylia looked at her hands. While she had struck the men down at range leaving her clean, she could still see blood on her hands.

Chapter 4

"You know Priss, I think I should have chosen the long treatment so you guys could be doing this yourself."

A grinning Priss leaned over Nene's shoulder. "But my dear little Miss Cyberpunk, you've told us so many times of how it was with your brain that you help us."

Nene sighed melodramatically and returned to her task. Ever since she left BioStar two days ago, she had been going through the records Sylia had downloaded from the files of their hunters. It was disturbing to find that the day after they hit the research unit, a team of boomers was to hit Priss' home in hopes of capturing or killing her. The details of the girl's lives was quite impressive. Even her own files were detailed to the point that they had a year old copy of her AD Police confidential personnel files and the 'official' Bright Star Hospital medical records. Other files revealed that the unit had been intelligence operation seeking details on any who might be a threat to Genom.

Priss sat back down and picked up some papers. "You know Nene, while you were laid up, I did some reading into the stuff you and Mackie gathered on Marcus Bryant. His newspaper articles are interesting. Have you read them, Nene?"

Nene looked up from the computer screen for a second. "Actually, no. I glanced at the biographic bit but I never sat down to read everything."

"Well check out this bit from one of his last editorial columns." It is clear to anyone who really looks beyond Genom's line of propaganda that a major point has been reached in artificial intelligence. They have achieved what appears to be true sentience among a number of their most advanced boomers, a sentience that by common law requires treatment equal to what we expect. But Genom still stands by the attitude that all of its units are purely machines and therefor property.

The problem is that sooner or later some of these advanced boomers will realize that they are special and demand better treatment. Ad if Genom does not act soon, it may find itself on the receiving end of their anger.

Over the past few years, I have had the opportunity to interview two 33-S 'Sexaroids' and a 27-W Escort boomer. Both models were designed to interact with human with humans in such a way that it would be hard to tell that they were artificial. During these interviews, I was able to work into the questions of verbal Jemal Sentience Test developed by the noted scientist Armed Jemal. All three showed clear signs that their responses were thought out rather than programmed. In addition, the 33-S models reacted strongly in several parameters. Since, both models have been removed from public service, the 27-W's discontinued and destroyed, the 33-S's removed to the orbital habitats. It is my opinion that Genom has recognized the sentience of these two and moved to remove them from the public eye.

Priss set the paper down. "That would explain why a sexaroid would be removed for a vague ability to operated military equipment. And everything I remember of Sylvia was that she sought freedom just as strongly as I would have if I had been enslaved." She leaned back and thought some more. "As for the full scale rebellion, look at what Largo did."

"No...No, no, no, no." Nene's voice interrupted Priss.

A little peeved, Priss turned to give a sharp response only to notice that Nene was looking white faced at the computer screen. Something that could unnerve Nene that bad had Priss nervous now. "What is it Nene?"

"They have back-up files on a delayed deadman's switch."

"Where."

"In an auxiliary computer in Genom Tower."

Now Priss was as white as Nene. "A delayed deadman's switch, that's a file that would dump somewhere if it does not get a signal in a set period of time, like the one Sylia has for us, right?"

"Yes, and it looks like we have only five days to eliminated it."

"You said yourself that the reason that you have not acted so far is that we have been doing the job ourselves. Well if we cannot eliminate these files, we will be eliminated."

Sylia sat back down beside Nene. The meeting was not going well. Dr. Harrison was not budging from his position that BioStar personnel could not help them in any overt way. At least she and Nene had an ally in the room in the form of Marcus.

Marcus looked from the windows overlooking the treatment tanks. "The way I see it doctor, we have to act." Dr. Harrison looked over sharply at the leader of the Stalkers. "I'm serious. Based on the level of physical security at the site of the files, the Knight Sabers have in my opinion only a fifty-fifty chance of succeeding. Nothing against their abilities, but we are taking about a serious area of Genom Tower. If they go in and are destroyed, or they survive to be destroyed by the files themselves, the Stalkers will have to become active anyway."

Dr. Harrison looked at Marcus for a minute, then tuned back to the ladies. "Are you sure these files exist in Genom Tower. The references you saw might have been a bluff or decoy."

Nene shook her head. "No. I have been able to collaborate the log references to the comm records. Plus, I was able to confirm that the files were transferred into that computer core from Unit 52 at those times and that they were of the correct size."

Linna strode down the corridor aimlessly. She felt for Nene and Sylia, for she could see that Harrison had made up his mind a long time ago. She had a few chances to talk to him the last two weeks since the she first entered the complex, and she could tell that he was a very cautious man. So cautious that he would not commit the force he created unless he was fully convinced that it was need and would come back to haunt him.

Looking around suddenly, she realized that she now stood by the complex's gym, the place that Nene had said she had her encounter with Bryant. On a whim, she entered the gym on the off chance that she would find Rei there. To her surprise it worked.

Rei was standing beside an attractive blonde woman who was trying to walk leaning on a pair of parallel bars. Rei was encouraging her. "Very good, Calista, now try to keep your hands off the rails."

Linna walked over slowly. "Rei?"

Both women looked over, but Calista suddenly dropped down to her knees and held her head. Rei looked back to her charge. "It's all right Calista, we didn't realize how long it would take you to get used to an inner ear."

Linna stepped over and helped Rei stand up Calista. Rei looked over at Linna. "Linna, I would like you to meet Calista. Calista, this is Linna, one of the ones I told you about. Calista here used to be a 33-S boomer."

Linna wondered to herself why she could not hear the sound of her jaw hitting the floor. "What do you mean, was?"

Rei looked to her charge, "Keep walking. Well, Linna, you have seen what we can do to help heal a person. It does not take much more to grow an entire body." Rei reached out to steady Calista who had reached the end of the walkway and was turning around. "The only problem is that if we were to clone a person, you would end up with a fully grown body with the mind of a baby. On the other hand, Calista volunteered to allow her electronic mind to be transferred from her old body into one grown just for her."

"It's not easy." Calista said, "When Genom first activated me, I could walk, run and move with perfect precision. But this body does not have the built in controls and I'm having to learn to walk and move with it."

Linna looked at her closely. "Why did you do it?"

Calista reached out and took Linna's hand in her own. "This for one. Before, my hand would analyze yours, tell me if you were excited, calm, or whatever. Now I can actually feel your hand rather than receive a report." She released Linna's hand and looked at both of her own. "I have always felt I was different from any other boomer type, but now I feel almost human. I know that I think differently, but I feel closer to those I care for."

Calista began walking again and reached the end of the walkway. This time she hesitated, then began walking toward some exercise equipment across the room from them. Rei stood at her side the whole time and Linna found she too took up a supporting position just behind Calista.

"I wish we could have done this for Sylvie and Anri."

A dark cloud passed over Rei's face. "We would have helped them if we had known their origins, but Sylvie covered her tracks too well. By the time we knew who they were, Sylvie was dead and Anri was in Largo's shadow."

"You knew of Largo then."

Rei looked at her. "Dr. Harrison released the Stalkers for the first and last time during that crisis. But it was too late and we arrived at Genom Tower only to see the four of you achieve victory on your own. We still want to know where he came from."

"Mason." Linna said quietly.

Rei looked up questioningly. Linna sat down at the machine next to where Calista had begun a new exercise. "Brian J. Mason. We don't know how or why, but somehow he became Largo after Sylia stopped him on top of Genom Tower. Sylia thinks that he might have been one of Genom's 'Intellectual Assets' which would have helped him transfer his mind."

Rei adjusted something on Calista's machine. "We would love to know just who Genom put their Neurophage treatment into. We didn't think that Dr. Stingray's information dump to his daughter included such details as that."

Linna looked at her feet. "I would think that this would be something that Sylia or Mackie should reveal, but I think we need to trust each other. Dr. Stingray gave both his of his children the Neurophage treatment when they were kids." Rei blanched at that. "He felt that it was part of his insurance policy to help blunt any treachery from Genom."

Linna got up and walked over to stand beside Rei. "Before Nene was hurt, I was angry at you for spying on me. But since I have been able to sit down and talk with you over the past few weeks, I have come to trust you and the others here."

"I will do my best to earn that trust."

"Well, is that your final decision?"

Dr. Harrison looked down at the table before him. Yes. I have to protect my people."

Sylia started to speak, but thought better of it. After a minute, she turned and lead Nene out the door.

Nene walked over to Priss rubbing her hands on the skin-tight bodysuit they wore under their armor. "Priss," she said quietly, "do you think Sylia is ready for this."

Priss stopped what she was doing and looked over at her friend. "I don't know Nene. She took what she had to do then quite hard. It wasn't like Mason, he was trying to kill her too, but he was acting directly."

Sylia looked over at where Nene and Priss stood talking. From the covert looks they were casting in her direction, she could guess what they were talking about. Stepping into her armor, she thought on the three women who had become just as much family to her as her little brother Mackie.

Linna had come to her still in doubt about her own worth. By the time she faced Vision, she had become sure of herself. And now she could be relied upon to do anything that was need of her.

Priss was a barely contained bottle of fury back then. A 'rage-aholic' Nene had dubbed her. In time she found that she could turn to her friends, that she could be vulnerable without fear from them. Where once she would have taken off to solve a problem on her own, she had now begun to ask first for help if she felt she could use it.

Nene. She was still a child when she broke that puzzle Sylia had dropped on the Net. While the she was skilled in her won field, she nearly got herself and the others killed in battle. Now she was beginning to come into her own. Where she had been a liability, she now held her own and could be expected to do her part.

The women were her sisters. She did not want to lose them like this.

"So, what is this, Adrian?"

The blonde Frenchman looked up from the monitor. "It appears to be a total system dump from the files of Miss Stingray."

Dr. Harrison leaned over Adrian's shoulder to read the file directory. From details on hardsuit construction to her personal diary, Miss Stingray had included everything. He stared at the data for a few long moments.

"Monreux, shut down your terminal."

Sylia looked around the glass strewn hallway. "Nene, confirm."

"We're right on target. The computer core should be five doors down on the right."

Sylia activated the thrusters on her motoroid and flew down the hallway counting doors as she went. Reaching the fifth door, she smiled grimly at the 'Authorized Personnel Only' sign and punched in the door. Inside was a room far larger than the one they had raided a few days before, and this time boomers were waiting inside.

"Knight Sabers, initiate primary plan."

Quickly each Knight Saber went to their assigned duty. They had a complete layout of the room from BioStar which aided them as they maneuvered around. Priss and Linna engaged the guard boomers while Nene and Sylia headed for the auxiliary computer core located in the room.

But it is said that no battle plan survives the first contact with the enemy. Before Sylia could reach the core, a technician burst apart to reveal his true being. The boomer grabbed Sylia's arm and threw her to the floor. She rolled over and fired a plasma blast into the boomer's head, but now she could see that nearly a dozen others were engaging her team. Ignoring the normal technicians who were running in surprised horror, she engaged the next one. This boomer approached cautiously, then dove at her legs firing the laser mounted in it's jaw. Sylia tried to dodge, but felt the blast sheer off the left leg of her motoroid, turning into a liability. She burst free from it releasing it to self control and struck the boomer with her force blade. It was hurt, but she could not stop it before it grabbed her leg allowing another to tackle her from behind. She started to panic when the boomer atop her was blasted off. Looking up, she could see Priss, also sans motoroid now, confirm that her blast had disabled the boomer before turning her attention back to the ones at hand. Sylia looked around and saw that they all were beset now, but were holding their own. If they were lucky, they could still win this.

Linna's voice cut back Sylia's hopes. "Dear God! Dobermans!"

Sylia looked over at the four brutes which had just smashed their way into the room from the hall via the wall. She was surprised to learn that Genom dared to keep such dangerous boomers in the Tower itself. The Dobermans were known fro their raw power and single minded determination. Against one or two, the Knight Sabers may have been able to defeat them, but not four in the weakened state they had been reduced to already. She could only watch as one grabbed Linna, motoroid and all, and throw her into the wall across the room. Moving to fire upon the Doberman, one of its mates fired its laser at her. The beam knocked her onto her back, and she could feel the pain on her chest from the intense heat, knowing full well that while her armor had held, her suit was now crippled. She looked up and watched as the Doberman walked over to stand over her to deliver the death blow. Then a man's voice cut across her communications gear.

"Sabot up! Sabot away!"

The Doberman standing over her started to turn its head when a explosion ripped through its torso. When the smoke cleared, she could see that a new force had entered the fray. Standing in the hole that the Dobermans had made were five people. Two wore hardsuits vaguely similar to the Sabers. One of these wielded a large cannon-like weapon which was now swinging to bear upon a new target. The other three were only wearing unpowered body armor, but they were moving with a smooth, fluid grace which was far beyond what any human could accomplish.

Sylia ran a diagnostic on her suit and confirmed that it was virtually crippled. So she propped herself up on her elbow and attempted to help by coordinating the melee. Looking around, she could see that three of the Dobermans had been felled by the cannon and the forth was falling back from Priss and Linna's vicious assault. Across the room, Nene, with the assistance of two of the others, was now linking up with the core to dump the memory-wipe virus into the system. the others were now pushing back the boomers which filled the room.

For the first time in nearly twelve hours, Sylia felt she might see the next sunrise.

"Damn it hurt." Sylia said as the breastplate of her armor was removed. She looked over at Nene and Iris who stood watching anxiously as Rei and Marcus pulled the remains of her armor off of her. Turning her head, she could see Mackie's helicopter following them with the rest of the Stalkers and Sabers.

"I see that you decided to disobey Harrison." She said to Marcus.

"Well, yes. But he ordered us here before we could act on our own decision." He replied. "Now relax, we'll get you and Linna into the tanks as soon as we land. You should be fine by tomorrow night."

Quincy stood glaring at the screen inbedded in his desk. That the Knight Sabers had been so bold was no surprise. In fact he had been puzzled as to why this had not come sooner. No, it was the report he had just received concerning the others helping them that had gotten his attention.

"BioStar. I thought I had wiped out that threat a while back. Now I see I will have to be more thorough."

Well, that's the end of part one. I plan on this becoming a long running series, so look out for more. Of course, that is unless I get distracted by the other projects running around my mind like Jusenkyo Moon, Shadow Crisis, The Legend of Saber Moon, or the Defender's Diary. I hope you liked it and will look forward to my future attempts.


	2. Part 2: Alexi

Genom Tower-Chicago had been repaired quite thoroughly after the Largo incident, almost back to the previous level of completion. Brian Wadsworth did not take the time to appreciate this though, in fact he had just wet his pants. Of course the fact he was now being dangled off the edge of the rooftop many stories above the ground was probably the reason for this.

"Like the view?" said a voice behind him. When Brian did not respond, the voice continued. "You know, I was wondering if I could throw you hard enough to get past the base of the tower and hit the street."

A moment later, the figure that had been holding the former vice-president of Genom-Chicago looked slightly disappointed. Brian Wadsworth had just crashed into the fifth floor windows.

BUBBLEGUM CHRONICLES II: Alexi

By Donovan Alexander Willett

Iris sat down before the new chief's desk. She was still in a little shock about being promoted to the rank of captain in charge of the Investigative Division of the AD Police, but she knew that Leon and Daley were in a bit of shock themselves.

The word came down two weeks ago that the AD Police was going through another restructuring. This had been bad news to nearly everyone because the AD Police had barely survived the last restructuring. If it hadn't have been for Largo and his boomer rebellion, it is possible that the AD Police would have been phased out. But, those events clearly showed the continued need for the division.

Rumors started flying when the directive came down to form a separate division within the AD Police to conduct investigations. They got even wilder when a member of the 'Normal' Police was sent to head the division. Iris had established herself as a competent investigator within the Police department, but found she had to work extra hard to get the respect of the Old Guard. At least she did have some help in that Leon remembered her from the Paradise Loop case and he recognized that she might be an asset to the force.

Then the first waves of the restructuring hit. Iris found herself being promoted to Captain, equivalent to the Precinct heads in the normal police, in charge of investigating all boomer related incidents. At the same time, Leon was made Captain in charge of the Tactical Response Division which handled the traditional role of the AD Police. The two of them cringed wondering who the new chief would be, then were utterly shocked to learn it would be Daley Wong.

Thinking on it, the choice of Daley was the best. He had been with the AD Police from the beginning nearly eight years ago, and was considered to be very knowledgeable of all procedures and regulations, not that he followed half of them. Some of the force were already grumbling that the job should have gone to Leon, but Leon was too much of a hands on officer and he would be spending more time on the streets rather than in his office doing the essential work. While Daley was no fan of paperwork, he knew its place.

Daley came in the door and sat down in his new chair. "You two are lucky." he said to his two captains. "I've just got finished talking to the Chief of the Normal Police, the Mayor, the entire Council individually, and representatives of Genom." He ran a hand through his hair and sat back in his chair. "Well, it's time to get down to the nitty-gritty of the change."

Iris took that as her cue. "Well, one thing Chief..." Daley cringed at that. "As captains, Leon and myself are supposed to be assigned an officer of sergeant rank to act as our aides. I've been reviewing the personnel records, and I've noted that Nene Romanova is due up for promotion to sergeant. I would like to have her as my aide."

Leon looked a little uncomfortable. "Iris, there is something you need to know about Nene." He sat quietly for a moment trying to think of the best way to say it. "Nene is...she has some...other obligations..."

Before Leon could stumble any further, Daley cut him off. "What my verbose companion is trying to say is that Nene is a Knight Saber."

Both Leon and Iris turned to him. "You know?" Leon asked.

"I'm not stupid." Daley replied. "I figured it out after a while. That's why I stopped referring to them as a group of mere mercenaries. Nene has enough integrity to show they have some as a group."

Iris recovered from her shock first. "Well, she told me already. As my aide, she will not be needed until after the incidents happen, so she will not be missed so much during the incidents themselves."

Daley sat back in his chair. "Very well, I'll let you tell Sergeant Romanova. How about you, Leon, who do you want as your aide?"

"How does this look?" asked Calista as she came out of the dressing room.

Rei and Linna groaned inwardly. The dress fit Calista's curves perfectly and enhanced her already exceptional looks. "Why," asked a smiling Linna, "did you have to give her such a nice body? I have enough trouble with the natural looks my friends have."

The three of them laughed and Calista returned to the dressing room. The three of them had been out shopping all day and enjoying each other's company. Before the events of two months before, Linna had liked Rei as a student and had hoped she could get to know her better. The revelation that Rei had a lot more in common with her than she ever imagined made their friendship even more natural.

As for Calista, she was a whirlwind of energy. Freed of the restraints her original body had when she was a "Sexaroid" built by Genom, she was truly enjoying life for the first time. Linna had not had a chance to get to know Priss's friend Sylvie before she was killed, but she could see how Priss, who was slow to allow anyone to get close, would become fast friends with her in such a short time.

Calista came back out in her old clothes and they went over to make their purchases. Afterward, they walked into the extensive park that dominated this part of Mega-Tokyo.

"Rei, how are Nene's Tai Chi lessons coming?" Linna asked.

"All right. She as to be pushed at times, but she does have the desire to continue."

"That's good. I have been trying to get her to do some more exercises ever since we joined the Knight Sabers. Until now, all we could do is get her into a few aerobics classes."

There was a bit of a silence as the trio enjoyed the relative peace of the park. Finally, Linna spoke again. "Rei, what kind of person is Marcus?"

Rei had been expecting that question for a while. "He is a good man, and a natural leader. I trust him with my life. And if I had a daughter around Nene's age, I would trust him with her too."

Linna smiled at how Rei had cut to the true question. "Thank you, Rei. Nene is like a little sister to me, and I worry about her."

After a time, they crested a hill in the center of the park, and were surprised to see a heavy presence of police around one of the park structures near the edge.

"I wonder what's going on down there?" said Linna as she began to make out the fact that both the normal and AD Police were present down there.

"I don't know." answered Rei, "But we can ask Iris and Nene. They just got out of that patrol car."

Linna looked out and could barely notice Nene's red hair at that distance. Sometimes it was hard to remember that her friend was not all meat and bone, for it was only with her enhanced vision that Rei was able to pick them out at that distance.

Sergeant Romanova busied herself as she began some new file headers on the portable computer as she followed Iris through the crowd at the crime scene. Once they reached the site itself, she stopped short in horror at the scene. "One victim bled this much." she said quietly.

Iris surveyed the scene, remembering why she was happy transfer out of homicide a few years back. "Either a heart wound or a major artery. Only they would spray this far."

Even with the body removed, the scene was one of horror. At the base of some marble monument to some forgotten figure was the outline of the victim. All around was blood, where it had splattered nearly three meters from the source.

After a minute or two, a lieutenant walked up to the pair. "One victim, Captain, a mid level executive for Genom by the name of Kenichi Henmi. He had his throat ripped out. Witnesses report that the victim had been waiting over by the restrooms over there when a figure dressed in black jumped from the roof, grabbed the victim and returned to the roof with him. They heard some talking up there, then the victim was propelled from the roof to where we found him. It appears that the fatal wound was inflicted just before he was thrown because it took him a few minutes to die. I sent a team up top and they found blood up there along with the front half of the victim's neck."

"Strength estimates." Iris inquired.

The lieutenant shrugged. "Pretty strong, stronger than any normal human."

Iris looked at the lieutenant with mild irritation. "Where are the witnesses?"

"There, over by the water fountain."

Iris lead the three of them over to the witnesses. One was a middle aged man dressed in business attire who was constantly checking his watch. The other was a woman in jogging suit who just sat there looking at nothing.

"Good afternoon. I am Captain Iris Cara of the AD Police. I have a few more minor questions before you go."

"It's about time." replied the man. "I was supposed to be back from lunch thirty minutes ago."

Iris ignored his comments and continued. "When the attacker took the victim to the roof, did he jump straight up there with ease?"

The jogger answered. "No. He was only able to make it up to the ledge and then he pulled himself up."

"Thank you. When he was thrown back down, was he turning or tumbling."

"Yes, like a disc." she replied.

"Thank you, you may go now." Iris told them. The man gave his barely civil thanks, while the woman nodded and slowly got to her feet. "Sergeant." Iris called to one of the female officers of the Normal Police. "See to it that she makes it home all right."

Once the witnesses were gone, she turned on the lieutenant. "Now, with the data on the weight of the victim we can estimate the strength of the attacker and comb through the records to find any boomer or cybernetic augmentations that would allow such action."

"Yes, Captain." the lieutenant replied.

"The information about how the victim flew gives some indication of how he was thrown. This time it appears that the attacker had to sling the victim away, rather than throw him through brute force."

Iris looked at the lieutenant's embarrassed face. "Don't worry, lieutenant. I know you are new to full scale investigations, so it is best you learn out here, rather than have the Prosecutor's Office rip your head off over perceived failings. Now, since the Coroner has taken the body already, do you have images of the wounds?"

The lieutenant relaxed a little and pulled forth a data-unit. After a second, he brought the images to the screen. "We were not able to ascertain if there were any injuries concealed by the victim's clothing, the Coroner should get any there, but we have some good shots of the mortal wound.

Iris looked hard at the image, then cycled through the rest of the crime scene images. "Good. Now finish up everything here and give me your report when you have it. I expect it first thing tomorrow morning."

Soon, Nene and Iris were back in their vehicle and headed back to headquarters. After a minute, Iris reached into her briefcase and pulled out a white noise generator that Sylia had designed. "Nene, we have a major problem."

"What do you mean?"

"The description of the attacker and the wounds mean one thing. Alexi has returned."

"Who is Alexi?"

Iris leaned back and felt glad that Nene was driving. "Just after I joined BioStar, they choose their first subject for the full scale augmentation. Alexi Tarmolov, like most of us that had been recruited by BioStar, had a grudge against Genom. In his case, he had lost his wife who was an operative far a Russian intelligence agency.

"After he received the modifications, which are nearly as extensive as the ones that Rei and Marcus have now, he worked as a field agent. But soon, BioStar leaned that he was using his new abilities to hunt down and kill Genom executives. BioStar has never condoned random murder, and the predecessors of the Stalkers were sent to bring him in. Only two of the six members, Rei and Marcus, returned alive. Shortly thereafter, he apparently left Japan and we only had scattered reports of his actions from around the world.

"At first, it was feared that his actions were the results of cyberpsychosis and all further implants for anyone were put on hold. But an analysis of his diaries and such later revealed that the psychosis was his own.

"Alexi is strong. He had the dermal mesh and a muscle net almost as good as our current best, better than mine. He has all the advantages of sight and is armed with arm blades similar to Rei and Marcus. The most notable feature are the climbing claws. In his fingertips are sharp spikes that, when extended, face back along his fingers allowing him to climb nearly any surface. He has taken to the habit of using these as deadly weapons, as the unfortunate Mr. Henmi has learned."

Iris rubbed her temples tiredly. "Alexi is considered to be one of the greatest threats to BioStar. While he has not betrayed us to anyone to our knowledge, he as killed some of our members. In addition, if he is ever captured, or he is killed and his body recovered, his modifications will cause a search for who did the modifications."

"Can they be traced back?"

"Possibly. If not the technology, they may be able to trace his moments back to his days here in Mega-Tokyo and they may be able to find us by association.

"With the death of Mr. Henmi, I think it is logical to assume that the 'Slayer' has returned to Mega-Tokyo."

Quincy sat back and contemplated the situation. "What does this bring the total to?"

"Eighty-seven, Mr. Chairman."

"Then set up the usual safeguards and traps." Quincy looked to the next person in the room. "What is the progress on this BioStar situation?"

Takada bowed. "While my sources have not revealed the location of BioStar's facility, I have come across some interesting information. On researching the records we seized from the facilities we took over, I found that they were ready to engage in full scale cloning procedures. In fact, the only thing that seemed to be holding them back was the fact that clones do not have developed personas. Our most recent information from the informant has informed us that they have bypassed this problem by installing certain boomer brains within clone bodies. I am confident that we could recreate this procedure, and as I outlined in my proposal before you, I have the perfect target for our purposes."

Quincy looked over the data before him. "So far, she has avoided causing any further problems for Genom."

"Mr. Chairman, she is still closely associated with the Knight Sabers, who are associated with BioStar."

"Very well, I approve. Is there anything you would like in addition to this?"

"Yes Mr. Chairman, I would like to have Madigan assigned to the project. She should help in keeping the section motivated and she has a strong loyalty to Genom."

Quincy though hard on that. Madigan was one of his best operatives, and one of the most loyal, but she could give him the possibility of direct control of Takada's unit if necessary. "Very well."

"Good-bye." Sylia said to her old college roommate as she stepped through the door. As she walked down the hallway smiling at the friendship they had shared, she thought back on how she must thank Linna on insisting that she got out more.

She entered the elevator and paid scant attention to the other woman who joined her. They shared the elevator in silence as they rode down to the lobby. Then it began.

Both occupants of the elevator looked up as the access panel in the ceiling opened up. Then a black clad arm reached down and took the other woman by the chin. She struggled and Sylia could see blood run down her neck as she was drawn up through the ceiling.

Sylia had been frozen for a moment, but she pulled herself together and reached into her handbag. Pulling out her phone, she punched the emergency autodialer.

From above, she could hear the sounds of the woman crying, then the sound of cloth ripping. "Don't rape me." she could hear her whimper.

"Rape you?" came the cold, calm voice of the attacker, "I would not soil myself inside Genom trash like you."

Then Sylia heard a wet, ripping sound accompanied by several rapid snaps. The woman let out horrific screams for a few moments as blood began to pour form the holes in the ceiling.

"We were able to follow the killer's bloody trail back to the alley behind the building, Captain, but it appears he entered a car there and no one has reported seeing it."

Iris nodded, only half paying attention to the lieutenant. She looked across the lobby to where Nene sat against the wall hugging her knees. Iris, in her time with the normal police, had seen several gory crime scenes, so this one had not shocked her too much. But Nene, who at most saw bodies from afar in her previous duties with the AD Police, was not ready to see a body like this. Alexi, the evidence pointed straight at him, had grabbed the base of the woman's sternum and had pulled it up like a pull tab, exposing her heart and lungs for the world to see. The location of the body had slowed down its removal, so they were there to see it brought down to the Coroner's gurney before it was bagged. As she got the last details from the lieutenant, she was Sylia walk over to Nene and try to get her to drink some water she had brought.

Sylia was not having much luck though. "Nene, you need to drink something."

Nene did not respond, she only stared blankly across the lobby. Sylia understood what Nene was going through and she sat down beside her. Finally, Nene spoke, her voice broken and rough from crying. "How would he do that. She was only a receptionist for some assistant vice-president. She did not set policy. She could do nothing to set the course of Genom."

Sylia reached over and pulled Nene close. "For him, it did not matter. We need to find him to prevent another attack like this."

"Miss Stingray." came Iris's voice. "Sylia, we have everything we need from you, so you can go now. I'm giving Nene the rest of the day off, could you take care of her?"

Sylia thanked her and gently began to lead Nene to her car.

Rei stood beside her car getting herself ready for this. Marcus and Dr. Harrison had approved this mission, she now had to get herself ready for it. She thought back on the last time she was face to face with Alexi. She had only been with BioStar for a few months, and she thought on how she had been recruited for the role she now held. Then, though, she and the others had been only lightly augmented.

In the end, there was no contest, for Alexi was superior in both body and force of will. She and Marcus barely escaped with their lives.

Slowly, she willed herself to walk and begin the recon. Before he left Mega-Tokyo four years before, he had used several safe houses around the city. The encounter that had cost the lives of four friends had occurred at one such safe house, and BioStar had been aware of two others, but had let them be. Rei had just finished scouting the other, and all the tells they had left were still in place. No one had been there.

This other one was a small apartment built into the back of an abandoned factory where the office spaces had been. She moved silently through the remnants of an assembly line whose product was long forgotten and she reached the second floor access. A new lock was on the door.

Someone had been there, that was for sure. But Rei needed to know for certain who had been there. With practiced ease, she leapt to a catwalk and crossed over to the roof of the internal structure. There, she found the concealed door they had installed for this purpose.

Dropping inside, she surveyed her surroundings. The rooms were devoid of any major form of ornamentation, which was in line with both Alexi's personality and the personalities of some forms of fanatics. Moving through the other rooms, she found they were still pretty close to how they had been when she was here last. Finally, she noted the small portable computer sitting on a table. She moved cautiously over to it, for she did not wish to disturb anything, but she was able to determine that the communications ports were filled.

"How do you think I find my targets?" came a familiar voice behind her.

She spun around and came face to face with Alexi. He was much the same as when she last saw him years ago. About six foot with blonde hair and cold blue eyes which always made Rei think of ice.

"Rei Sato." he said. "I was not aware you knew of my little home here."

She said nothing, but she cocked her wrists and blades shot from her forearms.

"Always the quiet one." he said. "But I was under the impression that a cease fire existed between BioStar and myself. Or is this a personal thing?" He raised his arms and his own blades extended. "You know, Rei, I did not want to kill them. I thought of them as much my friends as they were yours."

They made a few passes at each other, without making any real contact. Slowly they circled, then Alexi charged succeeding in scoring a strike against her thigh, but the blade fail to penetrate the dermal mesh under her skin.

Rei used the momentum to get behind him, but he threw his weight back throwing them to the floor. She retracted the arm blade on her right arm and then put out a set of smaller blades from under her fingernails. Quickly, she brought these across his face. But, like his shot to her leg, the claws failed to penetrate his dermal mesh and only left shallow, bloody scratches on his cheeks. Rolling to their feet, they faced each other again.

"Well, Rei, neither one of us has the advantage now. But we shall meet again." With that, he charged through the door and out of the apartment."

Rei stood there breathing hard. Finally she pulled back her blades and turned to gather the computer.

Outside, she did not see Alexi standing at the edge of another building watching as she got into her car. "Yes, Rei, we shall meet again. You and the others have been infected by Genom. I see that now. I will have to eliminate you. You and your new friends."

Dr. Harrison walked into the computer room and was surprised to find Adrian and Nene setting up in there. "What do you have planned Monreux, Miss Romanova?"

Nene looked up from her terminal. "We were thinking that if Alexi was half as successful as he appears to be, Genom would be keeping track of him as best they could. Adrian has not seen any data in the normal areas he monitors, so we are going to do a hard target search in some of their more secure areas."

Harrison nodded. "Yes, that way we could use any information they have, along with ours, to find him quicker. By the way, Nene, how are you doing? I heard you were a little shook up after seeing the results of Alexi's actions the other day."

Nene nodded as her face grew a little darker. "It pretty much ruined that day. But I'm going to have to get used to that if I'm going to keep wearing that uniform. Besides, working here to find him helps."

He started to turn out of the room when Nene called to him. Dr. Harrison. Sylia has invited some of our friends here to a little social gathering at her place tonight. You could probably use some time outside these walls, and we would be happy to have you there."

he stood quietly for a moment. "Thank you Nene, I might just make that." he said, then he left the room.

The blonde Frenchman looked at the door for a second, then went back to preparing his console. "You know, Nene. In the five years I have been here, I have almost never seen him go outside these walls socially."

"I don't think anyone thought to invite him much. I think he accepted because he and Sylia think on the same level in many ways, so he won't feel so alone there."

They made some finishing adjustments and Nene watched as Adrian pulled a cord out from a hidden fold on the inside of his right forearm. "You know," she said, "I half expected to see you sitting there with wires dangling from your head."

Adrian made the connections to the terminal laughing lightly to himself. "I never could stand the idea of having hardware stuck in my skull. All of my computer interface gear is in by arm between the two bones. I control it through a neural cord we grew just for that." He smiled. "This way, I have all the advantages. Plus, if any ice nails my hardware, I don't have to worry about my gray matter being aced with it."

Soon, they were into the net and moving into Genom's systems. Letting loose some search routines they had worked up earlier, they soon found the Slayer files. That done, they made a quick retreat.

Nene leaned back putting down the interfaces when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Startled, she all but jumped onto her console as she turned.

Marcus stood there with a blush running across his face. "I'm sorry Nene, I was going to ask if you two had found anything interesting."

Nene relaxed and laughed nervously. "We found some files we can go over later. You going to be at Sylia's tonight?"

"Of course, I would not miss that for the world. But I came down here for another reason. Rei just got back from an overnight recon of Alexi's hideouts and she ended up face to face with him at one point. He might be more willing to act against us now. Keep that in mind."

Nene looked down for a second, but pulled herself together. "Well, we will get him long before he has a chance to get us." she said and she edged around him to leave the room.

Marcus just stood there thinking on how to react to the fact that she just goosed him.

"I'll be right back." Mackie said as he left the room. The three ladies present waved good bye and went back to sorting out the contents of boxes spread all around the mid sized apartment.

"Where do you want this, Akiko?" Priss asked as she pulled some audio equipment out of one box.

Akiko Akado pointed to a bookcase she and Mackie had just finished reassembling. Taking a small break from unpacking, she looked around the apartment she and Mackie had found. Finally she spoke. "Well, do I pass?"

Priss nearly dropped the stereo as she began to laugh. Sylia just smiled. "If I didn't think you were good for my little brother, do you think I would have let things get this far?"

"Well, the way the four of you act whenever you are around, I just thought you were still reserving judgment."

Priss actually turned a little red. As much as he could be a pain in the ass at times, she did see Mackie as a little brother at times. And this was a sentiment felt by the other Knight Sabers. She looked over at Akiko. She was an attractive woman of medium height, black hair and brown eyes. She also noted though that Akiko had dressed as normal in a revealing outfit, a trait which had caught her off guard when she realized that this woman was seeking to be a surgeon.

Meanwhile, Sylia had pulled out one of her noise generators and had placed it on a countertop. "Actually, Akiko, we came here for another reason. I admit that I did some background checks on you to ensure that you were a good person, and I now feel safe to give you this information."

Akiko looked at Sylia in puzzlement as the leader of the Knight Sabers continued. "You see, Mackie has some responsibilities that stem from the fact that he helped me design, build and maintain the suits that Priss, Linna, Nene and myself wear in our other profession."

Akiko gave a nervous grin. "Don't tell me, you're Knight Sabers, right?" The grin faded when Sylia nodded. "Well, at least Mackie doesn't go out with you." she said quietly.

"He pilots our support vehicles and he does have his own combat armor if things require it."

Akiko stood quietly for a moment. "That explains why he had to cancel a couple of dates all the sudden." she said quietly.

"If you were going to be close to Mackie, you needed to know this."

Akiko still stood there quietly when Priss came up and put her arm on her shoulder. "Don't worry, we won't let anything happen to him." Akiko relaxed slightly at that. "Besides, if we lost him, who could we pick on?"

Akiko burst out laughing and the tension in the room eased up a little. She looked back up at the two women. "Is that all? There aren't any global conspiracies I need to know of are there?"

"No," Sylia said keeping a straight face, "we took down the Illuminati last week. We're not do to save the world again for at least a few days."

When Mackie came back later, he was left to wonder how the three of them ended up sitting on the floor laughing.

Nene pulled into the garage of the Silky Doll on her motoroid. Ever since the bomb that nearly killed her had been planted in her scooter, she had been riding the motoroid and truly enjoying herself. Pulling off her helmet, she looked over and saw Iris getting out of her car.

"Nene, you naughty little girl."

"What?" Nene replied with an air of offended innocence.

"I think Marcus is still standing in there in the computer room trying to react."

They laughed and headed for the elevators. There they ran into Sylia as she came out of the car. "Nene, Iris." she said in greeting. "Mackie managed to get his car to breakdown. How he could manage that while still maintain the vans, I don't know, but I'm going to go pick him and Akiko up. Linna, Rei and Calista are already upstairs enjoying the pool."

They talked as they rode up to the top floor of LADYS633 where Sylia had her extensive living area. Stepping out of the lift, they looked around for a second, then the lights went out.

Nene turned back to the elevator to see arcs running through the control panel. They looked around as emergency lights came on to cast a dim, yellow light.

At the pool, Rei looked to Calista and Linna who were sitting on the edge of the pool. "This happen before?"

Linna, who was looking around, shook her head. "Once, but the backup generators kicked on almost immediately."

Rei pulled herself out of the water and dried herself off. "I'm going to look around. Stay here." she said as she pulled on a T-shirt and began to move off.

Passing around a corner, she had no warning when she was attacked. Despite the shock absorbing properties of the dermal mesh and having an unbreakable skull, the blow of the metal baton shook her brain enough to daze her seriously. Quickly, skilled hands manacled her hands and feet together and she felt herself being lifted.

"Don't worry," came Alexi's voice behind her ear, "I won't kill you just yet. First, I'm going to take out your new friends. I'm saving you and Captain Cara for last."

At the pool, Linna and Calista had finished pulling on their clothes. Linna was about to say something when she felt her communicator in her purse begin to vibrate. Pulling it out, she heard Nene's voice. "Sylia, come in Sylia." The signal was weak and she could hear a jamming tone.

Nene repeated the call twice more before Linna keyed hers. "Looks like the signal is not getting out."

"I tried calling too, but the land lines are cut and the cell phones are being jammed too. I'm at the armory now, but the locks fried, just like the elevator controls."

"All right. Rei is taking a look around, but I'm going to check the emergency exits."

"Roger."

Linna and Calista left the pool and entered the vast chamber which everything was located. Reaching one of the emergency doors, she found them to be spot welded shut. She cursed and pulled back out the radio. "Nene, the emergency exits have been sealed. With Rei, we might be able to get them open, but she hasn't gotten back from her recon."

Calista was looking around when she suddenly pointed up to the supports for the glass ceiling. Linna looked up to see a figure hanging other one from one of the central beams. The figure then jumped down to where Sylia was building an addition.

Marcus pulled into the garage to find Sylia standing by the disassembled controls of the elevators. She looked back and seeing him and Dr. Harrison, walked over to the car.

"I'm glad to see you Marcus. I got back to find the doors here are inoperative and all contact with upstairs cut off. I sent Mackie with Priss and Akiko to Dr. Raven's to get the van, but they won't be back for at least twenty minutes."

"Where are the emergency routes."

"Over there." she said pointing to a back corner. "I didn't want to take them without the hardsuits, but you might be able to make a recon."

Marcus got out of the car and pulled up the driver's seat to reveal a compartment in which he kept a backup suit of body armor. Donning it quickly, he regretted that this unit did not include the trust unit, but he was soon ready.

Sylia handed him a piece of equipment. "This is a signal tracer. With it, you should be able to find the jammer and take it out."

Nene slowly moved through the rooms of the unfinished structure. The flechette pistol she carried felt cold in her hands as she listened for the slightest sound.

"Hello Miss Romanova." came an unknown male voice. She spun around and fired as the dark figure came into view. He grabbed his left bicep. "That penetrated." he exclaimed.

Before Nene could fire again, he stepped forward and knocked her down with a fierce backhand to the jaw. She shook her head and started to bring the gun back up when he brought up his own pistol and fired a single shot. Nene felt pain shoot through her head and she saw no more.

Iris moved quickly to reach the sound of gunfire. She turned the corner and leveled her pistol on Alexi who was standing over Nene's inert form. Immediately, she fired a quick burst of shots, but, unlike the tiny needles of Nene's pistol, the slugs her pistol fired were stopped by the dermal net.

Alexi turned and smiled. "Iris. I'm afraid that your little friend will have to end her position as your aide."

Iris cursed and dropped the pistol. Grabbing a metal rebar lying on the floor, she charged Alexi ignoring the sharp pains she felt as her dermal mesh stopped his gunfire. With a yell, she swung the bar, striking him on his wounded arm.

He stumbled back and raised his arms to block some of the barrage of blows Iris swung in her anger. While she was not as strong as Alexi, she knew his older dermal mesh was not as efficient as hers in absorbing kinetic energy and that her blows were beginning to tell.

Finally he managed to catch the bar and drawing out the metal baton he had used on Rei, he struck her on the side of the head. She fell to the floor dazed. "I'm going to kill your other two friends before I come back for you. Enjoy these last few minutes you have." he said before leaping out a window.

Gathering her wits, she crawled over to Nene's prostrate form. She was bleeding badly from the forehead, but the wound was nowhere near as bad as it looked. Iris pulled a bandage out of her purse and placed it over the wound. "You're lucky, Nene, that we gave you that extra hard skull when you first came to use."

Linna stood looking around for a weapon. This was where Sylia stored her recreational equipment, but there was only so much that could be done with a ski pole. Suddenly her radio came to life. "Linna."

Linna pulled it back out of her pocket. "Yeah Iris."

"We met the intruder. It's Alexi. He knocked me silly, but he wants to kill everyone else first. Nene is down, but the ceramic bone lacing we gave her saved her. Keep an eye out, he's coming for you now."

Linna stood still, thinking about what to do next when automatic fire cut through the door. Hugging the walls, she and Calista managed to avoid the bullets, but there was no other exit.

After a second of silence, the door burst apart as Alexi threw himself through. Calista immediately threw herself at him, knocking him off balance, but he recovered and threw her away. Linna was surprised at how well Calista rolled and landed virtually on her feet. Before Alexi was able to bring the machine pistol to bear on Linna, Calista was on him again.

Looking around, Linna finally found her weapon. Grabbing a mountaineer's pick that Sylia had used during her stay in Germany last year, she turned and awaited an opening.

Calista, her arm bleeding from a blade strike, saw her there and acted. Dropping down, she grabbed Alexi's legs and pulled back. Alexi collapsed onto his back, leaving him momentarily open.

A moment was all Linna needed as she brought the sharp point of the reinforced steel pick down on Alexi's chest.

Alexi grunted and rolled over. Getting to his feet, he pulled the pick free. "Do you think you can stop me with this, girl?" he said. He brought the pick up to strike Linna, but then he stumbled. Looking down, she saw the free flowing blood pouring from the wound. "Why do you stop me?" he asked dropping the pick. "I am only doing what has to be done."

Alexi stumbled forward and grabbed Linna's shoulders. "Genom is evil to the core. It must be destroyed to the last man." he said. He stood there for a moment, a pleading look in his eyes, before he crumpled to the floor.

Linna had moved over to tend to Calista's wounds, ignoring the fact that the front of her clothes were covered in Alexi's blood, when the radio came to life again. "Nene, Iris, Linna, come in." came Marcus's voice. The jamming tone was gone.

"Marcus, where are you?" came Iris's reply.

"Up in the rafters with Rei. I traced Alexi's jammer up here. Where is he?"

Linna keyed her radio. "He's in here. Dead." she said, suddenly tired. "Calista is hurt, and Iris said Nene had been wounded."

Sylia's voice cut in. "I just got off the line with BioStar. They have a evac copter inbound."

Linna did not respond. She just sat there looking at his body.

"I've got confirmation. Alexi Tarmolov was killed by the Stalkers and Knight Sabers the Stingray residence."

A young man looked at the other three in the room. "I have reviewed Tarmolov's files. If I might ask, why did we use such an unstable individual."

The eldest in the room sat back in his chair. "Questions are good Johnson. Alexi Tarmolov was a walking smokescreen. Where he went, Genom's attention was focused on him, and not on uncovering our activities. In addition, we were able on fourteen occasions to direct him to specific targets and on eight occasions, passed off our operations as his activities." The main leaned forward and interlaced his fingers bellow his chin. "On the other hand, he had gotten to the point that he was getting to be a possible liability. So it is fortunate that he was eliminated before he could have lead others to us."

The one woman in the room stood up and walked over to the window overlooking New Orleans's French Quarter. "Will we have our agent inside BioStar leak anymore information to Genom."

"No, not yet."

She turned to her companions. "I still believe we should redouble our efforts to get an agent into the core of BioStar. The agent we have now is useful, but he does not have the access we need and it is unlikely he will get it anytime soon."

"Patience Linda, the Agency will get there eventually. Our plans are progressing apace."


End file.
